Articles

The last couple of weeks bore witness to some interesting news. Headlines generated from ranks of the European Union were complemented by updates from the realm of new technologies and applications continuously on a crusade of further progress and development even in the world of virtual currencies.

With Lithuanian Parliamentary elections approaching, Lithuanian MPs like magicians are pulling out of a hat same old populistic laws. Once again they are trying to push through an old and already bashed suggestion that prohibits people from working on holidays.

A multitude of research shows that the shadow economy in Lithuania is decreasing. Yet, the pace of change is not as fast as desired. The level of the shadow economy remains high and there are still plenty of reasons for this kind of economic activity to emerge.

The Southeast Asian peace is a term denoting a relatively peaceful environment in East Asia (regarding armed conflict) in the post-Cold-War era. Due to the regional specificity, it is important to analyze which actors and factors contribute to the Southasian peace, and which – despite the absence of the security infrastructure – tend to defuse the potential armed conflicts.

It is not a conceptual disagreement, nor a philosophical objection to the foundations of capitalism, not even an opposition to all the capitalists. It is an arbitrary chosen threshold of profit based on the comparison between one and the other individual, and supported by sentiments (not reason), such as deceit of inequality.

There are two parallel debates going on in Europe: an ideological one about the role of Europe, and a technocratic one, about policy solutions proposed based on the first debate. And while many of the member states and their political parties try to win the first, the EU only seems to care about the second one.

One of the most important factors in shaping country’s political system is the electoral system. It determines the number of relevant political parties and how they work internally. This article will discuss the workings of the proportional voting system for the lower chamber of Czech Parliament1 and its impact on the Czech political system.

In the recent years we could observe a significant crisis of democracy and the rule of law in some of the CEE countries. During the Roundtable our experts discuss and compare how the political majorities attacked the independence of the constitutional courts and what was the response of the opposition, media, civil society and the EU.

After 153 days of work on the account of public institutions, the expenditures of which had to be covered by taxpayers, Liberal Institute together with the Czech society commemorated the Tax Freedom Day on June 2, 2016. The Liberal Institute has celebrated the Tax Freedom Day since 2000.

Centre for Economic and Market Analyses recently published a study dealing with circular economy. The text “The Efficiency of the Waste Sorting System in the Czech Republic – International comparison” deals with collective system of extended producers’ responsibility for packaging waste.